Unearthed Arcana Unearthed Arcana Takes On Theurgy & War Magic

In the latest Unearthed Arcana from WotC's Mike Mearls and Jeremy Crawford, the wizard gets another look. This week's short two-page PDF includes two Arcane Traditions - Theurgy (wizards with divine patrons) and War Magic (wizards who use evocation and abjuration in combat). "After releasing the 28-page mystic last week, we have a short Unearthed Arcana installment this week: two Arcane Tradition options for the wizard. The Theurgy tradition has appeared in Unearthed Arcana before, but this time we’d like to gather playtest feedback on it. War Magic is an option we’re exploring after reading your feedback on Lore Mastery and seeing interest in a war mage option."

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[Juomari Veren]

Wow, I'm so happy that they listened to what appears to be 0% of the critiques of the Theurge Wizard, and then made a new tradition that looks almost entirely useless at surface-level compared to every other tradition.

This is the first UA I think I've genuinely despised in every way.

 

[TerraDave]

Not as over-powered as the uber-mage they did sometime back, these seem fine on the surface.

But is wizard the class that needs two more options (and 11? 12? 13? in total)?

 

[darjr]

http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/unearthed-arcana/wizard-revisited

Also the Mistic survey is titled midway 14

 

[MonkeezOnFire]

Part of me was hoping that the UA for wizards was just going to consist of new spells instead of subclasses. I'm pretty satisfied with the arcane traditions in core, but new spells are always appreciated.

War wizard seems okay. Each of it's powers is good but not great. I find it overall a bit boring narrative wise to justify it getting included in a hardcover.

Theurge seems the same from last time I remember it. Something was probably reworked to not be as broken as the last but I can't seem to recall the details to see the difference. Getting access to cleric spells and channel divinity still feels a bit too good.

 

[Aaron L]

I'm really liking the War Mage Tradition.

I could easily see an Eldritch Knight choosing to shift his focus into pure Wizardy later in his career and muticlassing into the War Mage Tradition, what with the same focus on Evocation and Abjuration magic for both Classes.

The Theurgy Tradition as yet another take on the Divine Wizard seems fine... yet I am always confounded by the text invariably describing the Knowledge and Light Domains as good choices for a Wizard to choose if granted access to a Domain. Those Domains already work to emulate Arcane Magic and grant access to Arcane spells... why would a Wizard given access to Divine Magic choose a Domain full of more Arcane spells? And that's not just from a min-maxing perspective, as a character in-universe would know that he could learn to cast those spells in the normal progression of the study of Wizardry and so would be better served by choosing to focus on other areas of his god's portfolio, like Life, which the PHB says "almost any non-Evil deity can claim influence over," especially sun gods who would grant access to the Light Domain. But that's really just a pet peeve of mine and has no bearing on the way the mechanics of the Tradition work.

I think these are fine additions.

 

[ZeshinX]

Can't say I'm impressed with the Theurge. A cleric with the Arcane domain from SCAG is a better theurge than this (in almost every regard). The concept behind it is interesting (a faithful wizard)...but the execution is just....well, meh, really. They just plunked cleric channeling and a few spells into the wizard. Letting a wizard gain access to a domain capstone ability BEFORE a cleric with that domain?? Nope, not on board with that at all.

War Wizard...meh. Deflecting Shroud is not as deadly as it would like you to think. Sure, nice to spread it around, but that close and only 7 damage? (10 at 20th level). You're not wizarding well if you let critters get THAT close (10 ft. range). Useful against lower CR critters and/or mobs, but against more appropriately challenging critters for 14th level...you won't be that close and if you somehow find yourself that close...I don't think a gentle spank (even a Force damage spank) will bother them overmuch, especially when you've now borked yourself into only casting cantrips for a turn.

 

[Valetudo]

Meh.

 

[Al2O3]

So, how is Theurge different from Arcana cleric or a wizard with the acolyte background? I seriously thought "wait, didn't they already print this in SCAG?" for the first half of the central description.

The war mage seems perfectly fine to me. Almost a pity they didn't have it in time to include it in SCAG.

Sent from my Nexus 6 using EN World mobile app

 

[Istbor]

I don't feel like the Wizard really needs a lot of this right now. They have a good amount of choices already.

What is more, while I like the war magic well enough, the Theurge rubs me the wrong way. Especially how they gain domain abilities faster than a Cleric of the same domain.